some mechanics confuse me

[Odai]

I played the prelude yesterday for a few ours and i had a few problems...
1. the little stone guys which pretty much oneshot you if they evade and
2. the mages when they cast their barrier (played as mage myself in this run, and you need to hit them 10 times to get rid of the shield and sometimes they just recast the shield while it's up, which makes it pretty much an instant loss)

how do you deal with these 2 enemy's?

[Albreo]

Plow through them. You should pick the extra attack perk at the start and then reroll for electricity on the first floor reward. This will blow the shield in one turn. The mob hit hard and the mage build is pretty crappy unless you can one shot them all and not die from any reflected damage. The vampire character has an AoE confusion ability which means you can freely hit the mobs for three turns. The game is not very balanced. If you just want to complete the game then go for the Vampire + full Orion gear + extra attack + swift set bonus + and demon set bonus at the end. I finished the game with 6 mobs all elite.

[Amrehlu]

Originally posted by Albreo:

I finished the game with 6 mobs all elite.

To be fair, the game IS literally easier if you turn Swarm and Honor on thanks to all the extra money. You can have multiple Abyssal quality items by the end of the first floor with a little luck, 3-4 Divine with bad luck. Leaving the first floor with an Abyssal or higher Wooden Hammer sets you up for the 2nd and 3rd floors to be easy..

The reflect guys you either need Penetration (start with wooden hammer and hope for/reroll for Penetration as the first floor reward) or just enough damage to break their armor in a single hit. Otherwise, Dodge is a huge help, because you can dodge the thorns damage too, so having enough dodge can let you ignore them. It does eat up your dodges though so they simply now present a different kind of threat, but a lesser one now.

Otherwise you need enough armor/hp to survive them or doing weird stuff like electricity, venom, and freeze (which is good if you get it as a first floor reward, but not great otherwise because it takes too long to level your shop up to the electricity and elemental items).

And yeah, like he said, if you ever go magic make sure you ALWAYS have access to non-direct damage like electricity or counter-attacks from that set that has the moon symbol. Otherwise the anti-magic shields will screw you over quite a bit. You can also just skip attack turns/use the attack turn for converting items and let them waste mana before attacking in some cases. It is a legitimate strategy to not attack against many enemies until their buffs go away.